Physiology of growth differences between tissue culture plants and suckers in Dwarf Cavendish and Robusta banana

The experiment was conducted to find out the difference in gas exchange parameters between tissue culture plants and suckers of banana cv. Dwarf Cavendish and Robusta. Tissue culture plants of Robusta showed significantly higher photosynthetic rates, stomatal conductance and mesophyll efficiency compared to suckers. In Dwarf Cavendish, differences were non-significant. However, tissue culture plants had higher leaf area in both the varieties. Thus, it can be concluded that higher growth rate of tissue culture plants in banana is mainly due to higher leafi area and partly due to photosynthetic rates.